The Feminist Reader

Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism

EDITED BY CATHERINE BELSEY and JANE MOORE SdCClion, ftliloriaJ malin and Intrudoction TO OUR PARENTS Cl Cuhm... BeIKy andJa"" Moon: 1989

All "shit rnl'n"ftl. No "'pmdunion, ropy 0< 'n.nsrniuion o(lhis publiollion may be..-l~ wi'houl ..-rill.... pnmiui.....

Fin! published 1989

PubliJhtd in 'M USA by Buil Bbclt""'U. N~ V.... l

I'rin.... in Hons K.... l.ibnl')" 0(00nJow..r;"I in P..bliation [h,u. "Tho- reminis' rnck<. Biblqnphy: p, Indlldft indn. I.•'aninislli,cnry cri'icilm. 1. r eminism and Ii"....'..,..,. I. 1ldMy, C>olhmnt. II. Moon.Janc. 1962- 1"N98,""~t'f6 198!l 80!1 IIB--77Sli ISBS 1-,U7lfl6...4f~9 ISBS 1-,U7ll6-Gt6-7 (pbl.) 116 Tht Ftminisl Rtader scrambling spatial order, disorienting it, mo,:ing furniture, things, and values around, breaking in, emptymg structures, turning the selfsame, the proper upside down. What woman has nOI slolen? Who has nOI dreamed, savoured, or done the thing that jams sociality? Who has not 8 Feminist, Female, dropped a few rro herrings, mocked her. way aTou~d the separating bar, inscribed what makes a difference wl~h. her Feminine body, punched holes in the system of couples a~d poslll~ns. and with a transgression screwed up whatever IS succeSSIVe, Toril Moi chain-linked the fence ofcircumfusion? A reminin~ text cannot not he more than subversive: if it writes itself it is in volcanic heaving of the old 'real' property crust. In ceaseless displacement. She must write herself because, when the time comes for her liberation, it is the What is the meaning ofthe word 'feminist' in 'feminist literary invention of a new, insurgent writing that will allow her .to put criticism'? Over the past decade, feminists have used the terms the breaks and indispensable changes into elTect in ~er history. 'feminist', 'female' and 'feminine' in a multitude of.dilTerent At first, individually, on two inseparable levels: - woman, ways. One of the main points of this essay, however, IS to urge writing herself, will go back to this body that has been worse that only a .clear understanding of the dilTerences between than confiscated, a body replaced with a disturbing stranger, them can show what the crucial political and theoretical issues sick or dead, who so often is a bad influence, the cause and of contemporary feminist criticism really arc. Initially, I will place ofinhibitions. By censuring the body, breath and speech suggesl that we distinguish belween 'feminism' as a political are censored at the same time. position, 'femaleness' as a matter of biology and 'femininity' To write - the act that will 'realise' the un-censored as a set ofculturally defined characterislics. relationship of woman to her sexuality, to her woman-being giving her back access to her own forces; Ihat will return her goods, her pleasures, her organs, her vast bodily territories kepi under seal; that will lear her oul ofthe superegocd, over­ Feminist Mosesed structure where the same position of guilt is always reserved for her (guilty of everything, every time; of having The words 'feminist' or 'feminism' arc politicallabcls indica­ desires, of not having any; of being frigid, of being '100' hOI; ting support for the aims ofthe new women's movement which of not being both at once; of being too much ~f a mother a~ld emerged in the late 1960s. 'Feminist criticism', then, is a not enough; of nurturing and of not nurturtng ...). Write specific kind of political discourse: a cri~ical and.theoretical,.l yourself: your body must make itself heard. Then the huge practice committed to the struggle aga.lIls~ pamarchy and resources of the unconscious will burst out. Finally the sexism, not simply a concern for gender III llteratu~e, at le.ast inexhaustible feminine imaginary is going to be deployed. not ifthe lauer is presented as no more than another lIlterestlllg Without gold or black dollars, our naphtha will spread values critical approach on a par wilh a concern for sea-imagery or over the world, un-quoted values that will change the rules of metaphors of war in medieval poetry. It is. ~y view t.h~t, the old game. provided they arc compatible with her politics,. a fe~l1Il1St critic can usc whichever methods or theoTles she likes. fhcre are, of course, differcllI political vicws ~i(hin the .feminist camp. My point here is not to try to ullify or totahsc these 118 The Feminist Reader Feminist, Femaler E4I1linine 119 di~~r~nces, but simply to insist that recognisable feminist man or a woman, but whether its effects can be characterised CTlIlCISm and theory must in some way be relevant to the as sexist or feminist in a given situation. study of the social, institutional and personal power relations In this specific COnlcxt, then, the fact that there arc no between the scx~~: what K~te Millett in her epochal study purely female intellectual traditions available to us is not as called s~xua/ polzllcs. For Millett, the 'essence of politics is depressing as it might have been. \"hat is imponant is whether power', and the task of feminist critics and theorists is to we can produce a recognisable feminist impact through expos.e the way i~l which male dominance over females (which our specific usc (appropriation) of available material. This conSI~tutes her SImple and versatile definition of 'patriarchy') emphasis on the productive transformation of other thinkers' constllutcs 'perhaps the most pervasive ideology ofour culture material in a way simply restates whal creative thinkers and and providcs its most fundamental concept of power'. I writers have always done: nobody thinks well in a vacuum, . In ke~p~ng w~t~ Millett's approach, feminists havc politi­ nor docs anybody ever live in onc. Feminists nevertheless clsed cXlstl~g cTltlcal methods (in much the same sort of way often accuse male illlclicctuais of 'stealing' women's ideas, as that Marxists have), and it is on this basis that feminist for instance the title of one of Dale Spender's many books, criti~is.m has grown to become a new branch ofliterary studies. Womtll oj Ideas alld What Men Have DO/It to Them, makes c1car.1 ~en~llllSts thcrefore find thcmselves in a position roughly But can we accuse men of 'stealing' womcn's ideas if we at slmll~r t~ that ~f.other radical cr!tics: speaking :Cram Iheir the samc timc argue vociferously for the feminist appropriation margmaltsed positions on the outskIrts ofthe academic estab­ of evtT)'hody's ideas? Spender's book examines cases of clear lishment, they strive to make explicit Ihe politics of the so­ intcllectual dishonesty: men presellling women's ideas as their called 'neutral' or 'objective' works oftheir colleagues, as well ow~ without an)' kind ofacknowledgemcnt oftheir borrowing, as to act as cullura! en'tics in the widest sense of the word. which must be said to constitutc an obvious example of the Like s?c~ali.sts, fe~inist~ can in a sense arrord to be tolcrantly widespread patriarchal cOOT( to silence women. Feminists pluralistic In thClr cholcc of literary melllOds and theories appropriating traditional thought explicitly discuss the precisely becausc any approach that can be successfuU; assumptions and strategies of the material they want to use appropriated 10 their political ends must be welcome. . or transform: there can be no question ofrecommending si/tII1 A key word here is appropdalion in the sense of crcativc appropriation ofother theories. (Many feminists object to the transformation. Given the feminist insistence on thc dominant idea that thoughts should be considered anybody's personal and. a~l-pervasive nature ofpatriarchal power so f.lr in history, property. Although I agree \\lith this view, it remains important fenlllllSts have to be pluralists: (lhere is no pure feminist or to criticise the presentation of impulses received from others fem~l~ space from which we can speak. All ideas, indudinK as olle's OWII: this practice can only reinforce the ideology of ~emll1lSt ones, ar~ in this scnse 'contaminated' by patriarchal intellectual property.) As politically motivated critics, femin- Idcolog)'. Thcre IS t~us 1.10 reason to hide the fact that Mary ists. will try to ~a.ke the ~Iitic~l context and implicalions of Wollstonecraft was IIlsplrcd by the male-dominated ideas of dlelr work expliCit, precisely III order to countcr the lacit ~he Frcnch Revolution, or that Simone de Bcauvoir was decply lacceptance of patriarchal power politics which is so often mnuenced by SaTlrc's phallocentric categories when she wrote preselHed as intcllectual'neutrality' or 'objectivity'. Tile SUQ"1 fex. Nor is it necessary to refuse 10 recoKlliseJohn The problem \."ith_~pende ' .approach-is thatit casts women Stuart Mdl s errorts to analyse the oppression ofwomen simply -as-erem',rrvittiinS'Olma e ploys. While it is true that many bcc~usc he was a malc li~eraJ. The point is not the origins of women have been victimised intellectually, emotionally-and an Idea (no provcnancc IS purc), but thc use to which it is physically-by men';"1ris a so true thai somc havc- lnunuKed put and the errccts it can produce. What mattcrs is thereforc dflcicnd.y-lO counrer male power. Stressing our right, aggress­ not so much whcther a particular theory was formulated by a ively if necessary, to appropriale other pcople's ideas for our 120 Th~ Feminist Reader hminisi, Ftmale, Feminine 121 own political purposes, we may avoid a defeatist analysis of hand this is obviously true: since patriarchy has always the situation ofintelleclUally and culturally active women. As tried to silence and repress women and women's experience, examples of this task ofcultural transformation, we can point rendering them visible is clearly an important anti-patriarchal to the many women who have staned the massive task of strategy. On the other hand, however, women's experience turning Freudian psychoanalysis into a source oflruly feminist can be made visible in alienating, deluded or degrading ways: analyses of sexual dirrerence and the construction of gender the:: Mills and Boon accounts offemale love or Anita Bryant'S in patriarchal society, Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray who praise of heterosexual love and motherhood are nOt per St have put the philosophy ofJacques Derrida to illuminating cmancipatory reading for women. rile mistaken b.dieLin feminist use, and Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar who have txptrienu as til c of fcmin·sLPQlilics, stems from the thoroughly rewritten the literary theory of Harold Bloom.' early emphasis on consciousness-raising (c-r) as the main political base of lhe new women's movement. The point is that consciousness-raising, founded as it is on the notion of Female 'representative experience' cannot in itself ground a poli.tics, since any experience is open to conflicting political interpret­ Iffeminist criticism is charactcrised by its political commitment ations.} It would seem that many feminists today have realised to the strugglc against all forms of patriarchy and~sexism, it this. Rosalind Coward even argues that c-r groups arc no follows that the very fact of being female docs not necessarily longer central (0 (he women's movement: 'For the most part, g arantee a feminist approach-:-As a po i"tiCal1'JisCQurse feminist consciousness-raising no longer forms thc heart of feminism; riticism takcs its raison d'itre from outside criticism itself. It small groups which do still have a central place in feminist is a truism, but it still needs to be saidthal nOlall books politics are now often either campaigning groups or study writtcn by women on women writers exemplify anti-patri­ groups'.!> archal commitment. This is particularly true for many early To believe that common female experience in itself gives (pre: 19605) wo.rks on women writers, which often indulge in rise to a feminist analysis of women's situation, is (0 be at precisely the kmd of patriarchal stereotyping feminists want once politically naive and theoretically unawarc. Thc fact of to combat. A female tradition in literature or criticism is not having the same experience as somebody dsc in no way ncccssaril)' a feminist one. guarantces a common political front: the millions of soldiers In her incisivc essay 'Are Women's Novels Fcminist Novels?' \\'ho surrercd in the II'"cnchcs during the First World War did R?salind Coward discusses thc general confusion offeminist not all tum pacifist - or socialist or milimrist - arterwa.ds. wllh female writing, both within the women's movement and Unfortunatcly, the expcrience ofchildbirth or period pains is in publishing and the other media. ;lLis...jUSLnOLP.ossible neither common to all women nor particularly apt to inspire to ..=.?y _th.~( woman-centred_wriling ave- 3nr-ncGt,ssary a deep desire for political Iibcration: if it did, women would .rclauonslup to fcminism', Coward argues. 'The Mills and long since have changed the face of Ihe eanh. Although crucially shaped by its anti-patriarchal emphasis on female Boon romantic novels arc written by " read by markcted for, and are all about women. Yet nothing could be funher from experience, feminism as a political theory Cannot be reduced the aims of feminism than these fantasics based on sexual, to a reAection or a product of that experience. The Marxist racial, and class submission which so frcquently characterize view of the necessary dialectical relationship between theory these Ilovcls'.~ Behind the frequcnt confusion of fcminist with and practice also applies to the relationship between female female texts is a complex web of assumptions. It is, for experience and feminist politics. e~ample, often assumed thaI thc_ve!X- fact of describing The faci that so many feminist critics have chosen to write expel'"le.!lQ:J.~r.ol.»'omenis a f.cmjni~LaCI. On the one about femalc authors, thClI, is a crucial political choice, but 122 The FeminiIl Reader Feminist, Female, Feminine [23 not a definition of feminist criticism. It is 110t its object, but its political perspective which gives feminist criticism ,its imposing cenain social standards offemininity on all biological (relative) unity. Feminist critics, then, may wdl deal wuh women, in order precisely to make us believe that the chosen books wTiuCIl by men, as they have done from the late 60s to standards for 'femininity' are notu10l, Thus a woman who lhe present day. Kate Millcn, in her pioneering Sexual Politics. refuses to conform can be labelled both unjeminine and unnatural. reveals Ihe fundamental sexism of mate writers such as It is in the patriarchal interest that these two terms (femininity Norman Mailer, Henry Miller and D. H. Lawrence; Mary and femaleness) stay thoroughly confused. Patriarchy, in other Elimann, in Thinking AbDUl lVomtn wittily discusses the sexist words wants us to believe that there is such a lhing as an habits of male literary critics, and Penny Boumelha analyses cssenc'e of femaleness, called femininity. Fcminists, on the the sexual ideology ofThomas Hardy in her ThomaJ Hardy and contrary, have to discntangle this confusion, and must there­ IVomtn,jusl to mention a few.' .. fore alwa s insist that though women undoubtedly ar~jemale..! A final problem raised by the distinction between ren:Il~lst tmslI1 no ~y guaxanlces that thcy 0011 bc.jem..i!line, This ~s and female is the question of whclher mcn can be femllllSts equally true whether one defines femininity .in ,the old pat~l­ or feminist critics. Iffeminists do 110t have to work exclusively archal ways or in a new feminist way. Essentlahsm (t~e belief on female authors, perhaps they do not need to he females, in a given female nature) in the end always plays mto the either? In principle, the answer to this question is ~ur~ly )'es: hands of thosc who want women to conform to predefined men can be feminists - hut they can't be women, Just as patterns of femininity. In this context hiologism is the belief whites can he anti-racist, but not black, Under patriarchy that such an essence is biologically given, It is not lcss men will always speak from a different position than women, essentialist, however, to hold thaI there is a historically or and their political strategies must take this into account. In socially given female essence. .... practice, therefore, the would-be male feminist critic ought [0 But if, as suggested, we defmejeminism as a pohllcal poslllon ask himself whether he as a male is really doing feminism a and jrmalmess as a matter of biology, we arc still confronted service in our present situation by muscling in on the aile with the problem ofhow to definejemininiry. 'A set ofculturally cultmal and intellectual space women have created for them­ defined characteristics' or a ;cuhural construct' may sound selves within 'his' male-dominated discipline, irritatingly vague to many, It would seem that any co~ltent could be poured into this container; it does not read h~e ,a 'proper' definition. The question is, howcv~r, whclh~r .It, IS Feminine desirable for feminists to try to fix the mcanmg of femlOlOlty at all. Patriarchy has developed a whole seri,es of 'femi~i.ne' If the confusion ofjeJl/ale withftminist is fraught with political characteristics (sweelness, modesty, subserVIence, humIlity, pitlhlls. this is no less true of the consequcnces of the collapse etc.), Should feminists thcn really try to develop an,other s~t of jemininf into jrmalf. Among many feminists it has long of 'feminine' virtues, however desirable? And even If we ,dId been established usage to make 'femininc' (and 'masculine') want to define femininity normativcl)', would it thcn not Just represent social cons/me/s (patterns of sexuality and behaviour become a part of the metaphysical binary opposirions H~lcnc imposed by cultural and social norms), and to reserve 'female' Cixous rightly criticises? There is also a danger of IUTl~mg a and 'male' for the purely biological aspccts ofsexual difference. positive, feminist definition of femininity into a defini.tlOll of Thus 'feminine' represents nurture, and 'femalc' nature in fcmaleness, and thercby falling back into another patTlarehal this usagc, 'Femininity' is a cultural construct: one isn't born trap. Gratifying Ihough it is to be told th~t women rca,lIy a woman, one becomes OIlC, as Simone de Beauvoir puts it. are strong, intcgrated, peace-loving, nunurlllg an~1 ~reallve Seen in this perspective, patriarchal oppression consists of beings, this plethora of new virtues is no less essenllahst than the old ones, and no less oppressive to all those women who 124 The Feminist Reader Feminist, Female, Feminine 125 dQ nQI want to P.@Y. the r_ole...of Earth Mother. It is after all end come back to the fundament'al 'couplc' of male/female. patriarchy, not feminism, which has always believed in a true Her examples show that it does not much matter which female/feminine nature: the biologism and essentialism which 'couple' one chooses 10 highlight: the hidden male/female lurk behind the desire to bestow feminine virtues on all female opposition with its inevitable positive/negative evaluation can bodies necessarily plays into the hands ofthe patriarchs. always be traced as the underlying paradigm. In a typical move, Cixous then goes on to locate d~ath at work in this kind of thought. For one of the terms to acquire The Deconstruction of Binary Oppositions meaning, she c~aims, i.t must destroy the other. The 'couple' cannot be left mtact: It becomes a general battlefield where So far, we have looked at the terms female - feminine ­ the struggle for signifying supremacy is forever re-enacted. In ~eminist in relation only to each other. It is, however, equally the end, victory is equated with activity and defeat with Important to be aware of the political and theoretical p~sivjlY; u~lder patriarchy, the male is always the victor. implications of assuming that they enter into automatic C~xous p~s~onately denounces such an equation offemininity and static binary oppositions, such as female/male or With passIvIty and death as leaving no positive space for feminine/masculine. woman: 'Eilher woman is passive or she does not exist'" The case of f~minist or ftminism, however, wOuld seem Broadly inspired by the thinking and intellectual strategies of to be somewhat dirrerent. The relationshjp between words Jacques Derrida, her whole theoretical project can in one ~ense like feminism, sexism and patriarchy would seem 10 be be summed.up as Ihe errort to undo this logocentric more complex than in the case of female/male or Ideology: 10 rocl~lm woman as the source of life, power and feminine/masculine, possibly because of the political nature en.c;r and to h~.,J the advent of a new r; minine Ianguj!ge o~ thes~ terms. I ar:n therefore not assuming that the following which ceaselessly subverts these patriarchal bina schemes diSCUSSion ~f the ,~~ology of ~inary oppositions necessarily where logocentrism colludes with ptla locentrism in an errort goes for sexlsl/femlOist or patnarchal/feminist as well, since to oppress and silence women. (Pha[[ountrism denotes a system ~hat Ihere seems 10 be no automatic homology with 'pairs' such as pri\:iJeges the phallus as.the symbol or source of power. male/female or masculine/feminine. fhe conjuncture of logocentrlsm and phallocentrism is often Helene Cixous has contributed a valuable discussion of Ihc called, after Derrida, phallogounlrism.) This project is itself consequences ofwhat she calls 'death-dealing binary thought'. ~raught wit~ dangers: although more aware of the problems ~Ilder the he.a~ing 'Where is she?', Cixous lines up a list of mvolved, CIXOUS often finds herself in great trouble when she blOary oppositions (sec pp. 101-2 above). Corresponding as tries to distinguish her concept ofaftminillt writing from the they do 10 the underlying opposition Man/Woman these idea of aftmalt writing. After an heroic struggle against the binary oppositions arc heavily imbricated in the patriarchal dangers of biologism, it is probably fair to sa that Cixous's icriturt.fiiiiinm~ value syste~: ea.c1~ Ol;~sitio.n can be analysed as a hierarchy theories of an 10 t lC en -fair ac into a form where Ihe. fenllnlll~. sld~ IS always seen as the negative, O{i:~lo~ica essentialism.' powerless IIlstance. I he bIOlogical opposition male/female, in u IXOUS s'dccollstructiQIl' of the feminine/masculine other word.s, is used to co.nstruct a series ofnegative 'feminine' opposition remains valuable for feminists. If her analysis is correct, for a feminist to cOlllinue advocating binary thought values which then arc Imposed on and confused with the t~ 'female'. For Cixous, who at this point is heavily indebted to implicitly or explicitly, would seem to be tantamount Jacques .Dcrrida's work, Western philosophy and literary remaining inside patriarchal metaphysics. The idea of it thought IS and has always been caught up in this endless unified fimale opposition pitting itself against a male front series of hierarchical binary oppositions, which always in the would thus not be a possible feminist strategy for the defeat 126 The Ftminifl Reader Feminist, Female, Feminine 127 of patriarchy: 011 the contrary, it would shore up the very analyses of male avant-garde artists Uoyce, CHine, Artaud, system it seeks to undo. Against any binary scheme ofthought, Mallarmc, LautrcamolH) have shown. II Cixous sets multiple, heterogeneous difftrtnct. In so doing, she Kristeva's emphasis on femininity as a patriarchal construct is deeply influenced by the French philosopher Jacques enables feminists to counter all forms of biologistic attacks Den-ida's concept of difference, or, more correctly, difftrana. from the defenders of phallocentrism. To posit aU women as For Dcrrida, meaning (signification) is not produced in the necessarily feminine and all men as necessarily masculine, is static closure of the binary opposition. Rather it is achieved precisely the move which enables the patriarchal powers to through the 'free play of the signifier'.10 To enclose maleness define, not femininity, but all women as marginal to the and femaleness in an exclusive opposition to each other, symbolic order and to society. If, as Cixous has shown, Cixous argues, is thus precisely to force them to enter into the femininitv is defined as lack, negativity, absence of meaning, dealh·dealing power struggle she locates within the binary irrationality, chaos, darkness - in short, as non-Bein~ ­ opposition. Following this logic, the feminist task par excellence Krisleva's emphasis on marginality allows us 10 view this becomes the deconstruction of patriarchal metaph¥s.ics (the repression of the feminine in terms of positiollolif)' rather than belief in alLinherent, pres_ent mcaniog...ill_lbc....sign). If, as .Qf essences. What is perceived as marginal at any given time Derrida has argued, we are still living under the reign of depends on the position olle occupies. A brief example will metaphysics, it is impossible to produce new concepts untain· ilIuslrale Ihis shift from essence to position: if patriarchy sees ted by the metaphysics of presence. To propose a new women as occupying a marginal position within the symbolic definition offemininity is therefore necessarily to fall back into order then it can conSlrue them as the limil or harder-line of the metaphysical trap. that ~rder. From a phalloccntr:ic pqint of view, women will' then come 10 represent the necessary frontier between man and chaos, but because oftheir very marginality they will also always seem to recede into and merge with the chaos of the Femininity as Marginality outside. Women seen as the limit of the symbolic order will in other words share in the disconcerting properties of all But doesn't all this theory leave fcminists in a kind ofdouble frontiers: they will be neither inside nor outside, neither known impasse? Is it really possible to remain in the realm of nor unknown. It is this position which has cnabled male deconstruction when Dcrrida himself acknowledges that we culture sometimes to vilify women as representing darkness still live in a 'mctaphysical' intellectual space? And how can and chaos, 10 view them as Lilith or the \Vhore of Babylon, we continuc our political strugglc ifwe first have to deconstruct and sometimes to elevate them as the representatives of a our own basic assumption of an opposition between male higher and purer nature, to venerate them as Virgins andJ power and female submission? One way of answering these Mothers of God. In the first instance Ihe borderline is seen as qucstions is to look at the French-Bulgarian linguist and part of the chaotic wilderness outside, and in the second it is psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva's considerations on the qucstion secn as an inherent part of the inside: the part which protects offemininity. Flatly refusing 10 define 'femininity', she prefers and shields the symbolic order from thc ima~illlllY chaos. to see it as a positio". lLftmininity then can be said to have a Necdlcss to say, neither position corresponds to any essential ddinition at all in Kristevan terms, it is simply as 'that which truth of woman, much as the patriarchal powers would like is marginalised by the patriarchal symbolic order'~l'his us to belicve that they did. 12 relational 'definition' is as shifting as the various forms of Such a positional perspective on the meaning of femininity patriarchy itself, and allows her to argue that men can also would scem to be thc only way of escaping tll(: dan~ers of be constructed as marginal to the symbolic order, as her biologism (conflation with femaleness). But it docs not answer 128 The Femini.J1 Reader Feminist, Female, Feminine 129 our basic political questions. For ifwe now have deconstructed long as patriarchy is dominant, it still remains politically the ftmale out of existence, it would seem that the very essential for feminists to defend women as women in order to foundations of the feminist struggle have disappeared. In her counteract the patriarchal oppression that precisely despises article 'Women's Time', Kristeva advocates a deconstructive WO".lC." as women. But an 'undeconstructcd' form of 'stage 2' approach to sexual difference. The feminist struggle, she ~cmln.l~m. unaware of the metaphysical nature of gender argues, must be seen historically and politically as a three­ Identities, runs the risk of becoming an inverted form of tiered one, which can be schematically summarised as follows: sexism. It docs so by uncritically taking over Ihe vcry metaphrsical.categories sct.up by patriarchy in order to keep (I ) Women demand equal access (0 the symbolic order. womcn In their placcs, despltc attcmpts to attach new feminist Liberal feminism. Equality. values to these old categories. n adoption of Kristeva's (2) Women reject the male symbolic order in the name 'deconstructed' form of feminism there ore iilOne senseIeaves difference. Radical feminism. Femininity extolled. cver:yt!!i.!!K.~ it~s - our posITiOns in the political struggle (3) Women reject the dichotomy between masculine and have not changed; but in another sense, it radically transforms feminine as mClaphysical. (This is Kristeva's own posi· our awareness of the nature of that struggle. A feminist lion.) appropriation ofdeconstruction is therefore both possible and , politically productive as long as it docs not lead us to repress The third position is one that has deconstructed the opposition the necessity of incorporating Kristeva's two first stages into between masculinity and femininity, and therefore neccssarily our perspective. challenges the very notion ofidemity. Kristeva writes:

In this third attitude, which I strongly advocate - which I Female Criticism and Feminine Theory imagine? - the very dichotomy man/woman as an opposition between two rival entities may be understood as belonging Against this background, the field of feminist crItICism and to mtlaphysics. What can 'identity', even 'sexual identity', theory today could helpfully be divided into two main cat­ mean in a new theoretical and scientific space where the egories: 'femalc' criticism and 'feminine' theory. 'Femalc' very notion of identity is challenged? (see below, pp. 214­ criticism, which per ie only mcans criticism which in some 15) way focuses on women, may then be analysed according to whether it is feminist or not, whether it takes female to mean ~ The relationship between these three positions requires some feminist, or whether it conflates female with feminine. The comments. Elsewhere in her article Kristeva clearly states apolitical study of female authors is obviously not in itself that she sees them as simultaneous and non-exclusive positions feminist: it could very well just be an approach which reduces in contemporary feminism, rather than as a feminist version w?m~n to the status of interesting scientific objects on a par of Hegel's philosophy of history. To advocate position 3 as with IIlsects or nuclear particles. It is nevertheless important -exclusive of the first two is to lose touch with the political to stress that in a male-dominated context an interest in reality offeminism. We still need to claim our place in human women writers must objectively be considered a support for society as equals, 1I0t as subordinate members, and we still the feminist project of making women visible. This would of need to emphasise that difference between male and female course not be {rue for obviously sexist research on womell. It experience of the world. But that difference is shaped by the is in other words possible to bc a 'female' critic without patriarchal structures feminists arc opposing; and to remain necessarily being a feminist one. faithful to it, is to play the patriarchal game. Nevertheless, as The great majority ofAmerican feminist critics nevcrtheless 130 The F,m;nut R~atltT Feminist, Female, Feminine 131 write from an explicidy feminist position. The emphasis in 'Feminine' theory in its simplest definition would mean the United States has been on 'gynocritics', or the study of theori~s. concerned with the construction of femininity. From women writers. Elaine Showalter's A Lilerature of Their Own ~ feml~l~t perspective the problem with this kind of thought and Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's TIlt Madwoman in the IS th~t.1t IS particularly prone to attacks ofbiologism and often Allie arc the most accomplished examples of'his genre within unwlttlllgly turns into theories about female essences instead. feminist criticism.I] In the context of Ihis essay, Gilbert and At the same time, even thc most detcrminedly 'constructionist' Guhar's monumental study furnishes an instructive example of theories may very well not be feminist ones. The works of ofthe consequences orthe confusion nol onlyoffcmalcncss with Sigmund Freud for example orrer a splendid illustration of a femininity, but also ofthis amalgamated femaleness/femininity theo~ formatio? which, while in no way feminist, provides a with feminism. In their investigation of typical motifs and c~clal foundation for a non-essentialist analysis of sexual patterns amongnineteenth-century women writers, they persis­ ~Irrerence. The alternative, a lheory ofessential female quali. (eml)' use thc adjective female, discussing for instance the tiCS, would, as we have Seen, simply play the patriarchal 'fcmalc tradition inlitcralUre', 'fcmale writing', 'female creali· game. Although psychoanalysis still needs to be creatively vity' or 'female anger', just to mention a few. One of their transformed for feminist purposcs, the fael remains that central arguments is that ninctccnth-century women writers feminis,~ n.eeds a non-essentialist theory of human scxuality chose to express their own femalc anger in a series of and deSIre In order to understand the power relations between duplicitous textual strategies whereby both the angel and the the sexes. monster, the sweet heroine and the raging madwoman, arc J\'luch French feminist theory, as well as various feminist aspects of the author's self-image, as well as clements of her rereadings of psychoanalysis may be considered 'feminine lreacherous anti-patriarchal strategies. This is an extremely theories' in this senSe. But there is a paradox involved in my seductive theory, and strikingly productive, for instance when arguments here. Many French feminists, for example, would applied to the works ofCharlolte Bronte, who ofcourse created strongly lake issue with my attempt to define 'femininity' at the eponymous madwoman in the first place. But ifwe unravel all. If they reject labels and names and 'isms' in particular­ the probable meanings of the word ftmale in Gilbert and even 'feminism' and 'sexism' - it is becausc they see such Gubar's text, we find that this theory of 'female creativity' labelling activity as bctraying a phallogocentrie drive to rests on the assumption thatftmale authors always experience stabilise, organise and rationalise our conceptual universc. anti-patriarchal rage in their heans and that thisfeminis/ anger 'n~er argue that it is masculine rationality that has always will create a t)'pically ftminine pattern of writing, where a pTlvllcged rcaSOll, order, unity and lucidity, and that it h;'ls shrewd strategy ofdisguise is used to make the message from done so by silcncing and excluding the irrationality, chaos thc marginaliscd group acceptable to the patriarchal powers. and fr~gm.cntalioll thaI has come to represent femininity. My Thisftminine pattern, however, is not available to male authors, own.vlew IS that such conceptual terms y situating them in relation to other, dominant'Structyes; M.ihon, SamJon AgoniJles we choose to read early texts by women as pre-feminist work; ~ decide to work on 'female' texts. The definitions proposed 1 Woman as Madness here are intended to be open lor debate, not to put an end to it, although they are also supposed to say something about Is it by chance that hysteria (significantly derived, as is well the terrain on which the debate might fruitfully be staged: known, from the Greek word for 'uterus') was originally politics, biology and marginality would seem to be key conceived as an exclusively female complaint, as the lot and issues here. There is not, unfortunately, such a thing as an prerogalive of women? And is it by chance that even today, intrinsically feminist text: given the right historical and social between women and madness, sociological statistics establish context, all texts can be recuperated by the ruling powers ­ a privileged relation and a definite correlation? 'Women,' or appropriated by the feminist opposition. As Julia Kristeva writes Phyllis Chesler, in her book Women and Madnm, 'Women might have argued, all forms of language are sites ofstruggle. more than men, and in greater numbers than their existence As feminist critics our task is to prevent the patriarchs in the general population would predict, are involved in from g'euing away with their habitual trick of silencing the "careers" as psychiatric patients." How is this sociological opposition. It is up 10 us to make the struggle over the meaning fact to be analysed and interpreted? What is the nature of oflhe sign - thc meaning ofthe text - an explicit and inevitable the relationship it implies between women and madness? itcm on the cultural agenda. Supporled by eXlensive documentation, Phyllis Chesler propo­ ses a confromation between objective data and lhe subjective testimony ofwomen: laced with the voices ofwomen speaking in the first person - literary excerpts from the novels and 230 The Fnninist Reader Summaries and Noles to pp. 102-33 231 Thus, feminine writing is identified as the libcralOry act which resists 4. Rosalind Coward, 'Arc Women's Novels Feminist Novels" Tht Ntw patriarchal ddinitions of femininity as lack or negativity, and which will Fmrinist Cri/imm, (ro.) Elaine Showalter (London, 1986), p. 230", ' 'change the ruks orlhe old game' by ctltbrating the affirmative power of a 5, Fora discussion OfSllCh political differenc" within American feminism feminine sexual/textual aesthetic of difference. Although this aesthetic see Hester Eisenstein, ContnnlHJfQ'J FnnilliJl Tlwught (London, 1984). ' presently belongs 10 .....omen writers, with Ihe exception ofsome homosexual 6. Coward, 'Are Women's NO\'els )-'eminist Novels?', p. 237. male writers such as]ea" Gencl, or modernists likcJamesJoycc, the essay 7. Mary Ellmann, Thinking A6Du1 Woml'n (New York, 1968); Penny envisages a IItopian fOlure in which the pluralilr and diffcfl':ncc of each Bollmdha, Thomtu HQrJy tmd Woml'lI: &xUQI !dl'olog} aM NQrrQlict Form PCr50II'$ possible sc:xuaI/IO-ma.! identities will be rdcas~. (Brighton, 1982). 8. Helene Ci"olls and Catherine Clement, Tfrt NtU.'1.J 80m WomQ/I, lrans. No/u 1kl1i)' Wing (Minneapolis and ~Ianehesler, 1986), p.64. I. Cixous, 'Ln Cornia de Hoffmann' ('Tales of Hoffmann'), in PriMms . 9. Verena Andermall Conlq-, in her book on Cixous, would certainly dI' pmlnlM (l\!oblNJy'J Firsl Namu) (Paris, 1974). p. 1121[ disagree: 5tt HifiN CixollS: IFrifilll'''t Fnni/l;'ll (Lincoln, Neh. alld London, 2. Sa 'Bisexualit': ct diffcn:ntt des sexes', NOIIuflr R~ if Psyr"QIIQlyu, 198"). for a discussion ofsome ofher ,'iews, see also Toril ~Ioi, &Xf/.lliITrxtuQI 7 (Spring 1973). PPlitia: FnnilliJl Lilt,Qry TMory (London, 1983), pp. 123-6. 10. Me,aning in De:rrida's Iheory is alwa)'s plural, unfixed, in 'play', II. Julia Kriste\'a, Rn'OIlI/ioll ill POl/ir !An&lIngt (New York, 1981). )-'or 8 Toril Moi, 'Feminist. Female, Feminine' (Edited extraCI$ from UI(.•lIl ~nd the symbolic order, 5« Eliubeth Wright, PSJih04l1lJ!Jtir Critirism: TMory //I PrtKtiu (London, 198'1); Moi, SuuaVTt.xI~{ PoIitu,s' and Tern 'Feminist Literary Criticism', in MoUnt [.ittrary TMory, (ed.) AnnJtfferson w~1I Anik~ and I);a\,id Robey (London, 1986), PI" 204-21.) ~ E.agleton, Litnary T1ILory: :t. !"trMIIl/ioll (Odord, 1983); as as Lemaire, jQ£'1IU,s WQII (London, 1977), ""hich for me remains the most Summary serious and wide.ranging introduction 10 Lacan. (See also the Glossary. The title of 'Feminist, Female, Feminine' alludes silentl)' to the three Eds.) categories of nineleenth-century ""omen's ""riting identified in Elaine 12. for a ne«:!lsary crlti(IUe of Ihe political implicalions of Kristeva's Showalter's:1 !.ilrrnlu,r tif T1Itir OW". Moi redefines the terms and then IISes throries at this point, 5« ~foi, &xllatITrx/llaf Po/ilirs, PI'. 130-73. them as the basis ofa (mild) critique orShowaher's own theoretical position', 13. Elaine Showalter, A Lilanlllrt of Tlui, OWII: Britis" Il'omrn NOCl'listJ In the exlract rl:prinled here it is argued that "feminisl' is a political from B,ollli 10 wsillg (Princeton, 1977). term, 'female' a biological Olle, alld 'feminine' a cultural definition. The essay calls into question the belief that female experience is the b:lSis of feminism, or in other ....ords that politiCli is a direct effect of biology, 9 Shoshana Felman, 'Woman and Madness: the Critical Phallacy' ~,Ieanwhile. if 'feminine' specifies a cultural rather than a biologiC',,1 (From Diarritjr.s, 5 (1973). PI" 2-10.) dIfference, to oppose 'feminine' to 'masculine' in an absolute binary opposition is ultimately to reaffinn all esselltialist and patriarchal distinction. Summary It follows that to privilege 'fcminine writing' (the irriturtJrmi"int of French feminism) is to be in perpetual danger of falling illlo )'et another form of Felman's essa)' was originally wrilt~n as a rl:\'i.. w or three IJooks, IJlld biological essentialism, lIoll/tTl Madnt,sJ by Phyllis Chesler, Luce Irig:lr'IY's Spirufum r/, /'aulrtjtmmt and a The essay goes Oil 10 dt\'elop the argllln"nt that 'the feminine' is not an I1~W L-ditioll of Balzac's short slory, ..Ioitu. Chesler treats women's madness essence hut a culturally produced po~ition of marginality in relation to a~ eilher an r.ffect or a refusal of the role alloued to women in our culturl:, patriarch:11 society. ~ a relatiollallX)Silion rather than a f.1.ct ofrtalun', it Chl:slcr's book reproduces the voices of .....omen. Irigamy is also critical of is a place from which lu conduct a fcminist politics commillcd to l:hange, the place of silcncc allocated to women, but she undertakes 10 speak jor women in her own vuice, ,lilt! so casts doubt on Iler OWI1 undertaking. Nol's Chesler, WilhoUl a theory,l,::n'es women in the Iwsilion of"ictims: Irigaray, 011 111l~ other h;llld. uO"r:rs a theon,tic:11 analysis, hut fails tn analyse lhe I. K:lte Millelt, St,lunfl'olitir.s (I.ondon, 1971), p. 25. IXlsitioll fmm which she herself speaks. tlditu, meanwhile, is .. story about 2. Dale Spt'lIdu, WomtTl of!titas oml What MtTl IInu Don' 10 71rtm (London a~ 1982). ' it woman, m..dness alld silcnl:e. .Iusl llle instilution or lilerary criticism s)"stcmalical1y omits womell from its concerns, silc:nccs them. so the modnll 3. Sandra M. GiJl~rl :lIld Susan Gubar, Tht Madwoman in Ihi lillie: Ih, COmllll:ntators on Aditu excise the role of the wom.1II in lh.. story. !Jalzac's Woman IlIn"rr and Iht NintlUnlh-Ctnlury Liltra'Y Imagination (New "Iaven, ·rcalism' is thus seen 10 C(lncern it~('lf with men and wilh reason: women 1979).